


the secrecy our smiles take on

by getmean



Series: sledgefu week 2019 [4]
Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1970s, Introspection, M/M, Mutual Pining, casual fling to lovers, lighthouse keeper snafu, ornithologist eugene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 03:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18792043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: There’s a hint of blue on the horizon, beyond pregnant black storm clouds, and Snafu watches the storm roll in with something deeply humbling settling into his bones. Sometimes it feels like he lives on the very edge of the world; the whole earth rolling out at his feet, a silent witness to the whims and changeable moods of the planet. His tiny little slice of pure nature in the middle of the great blue beyond, ocean stretching as far as the eye can see.





	the secrecy our smiles take on

**Author's Note:**

> written for day six of sledgefu week: different era au! but really an excuse for me to write the lighthouse keeper au of my dreams

It’s the gulls that wake Snafu up, long before his alarm is set to go off. Cawing loudly on the ledge above his window, and Snafu groans, turns his face into his pillow as he listens to their big, webbed feet wander around above his head. Every morning, like clockwork. He may as well unplug his alarm clock at this rate, but that means surrendering to them, and Snafu knows gulls well enough that they can smell surrender. 

He lounges in bed a few minutes more, covers pulled over his head as he wakes up, eyes adjusting to the dim, diffuse light of the dawn sun through his sheets. When he pops his head out it’s near blinding, and he screws his eyes up against it as he rights himself, scratching a hand through his hair before stretching, hands to the ceiling as he feels his back pop with the effort. Then he goes limp, sighing as he shuffles his feet into his slippers and then rises, crossing to the window to throw the curtains open. The view is always breathtaking, no matter how many times over the past five years he’s stared out on it. The land below his window drops away into a steep cliff; dark, wet rock plunging into the sea below. The waves crashing up against the rock as though threatening to unseat him from it, and he follows the line of it, down the pebbled beach running alongside the lighthouse. He can barely see it for how thick and grey the fog is, lying low on the waves. The sky above looks as unhappy as the sea below, and Snafu eyes it warily. Rain, today. He’d bet anything on it.

The thought turns him loose from the window; wandering through from his bedroom and down the narrow, tightly curling staircase into the bottom floor of the house. The room is oddly dim for the morning, the sky grey above the huge skylights set in the roof, and Snafu walks through the room, flicking lamps on as he goes. The dark slate tile is cold even through his slippers, worn thin as they are, and Snafu drinks a slow cup of coffee sat at the kitchen table, cigarette in his hand and the paperback he’s been trawling through for the past couple days open in front of him. Mornings are always a slow, quiet affair for him. It’s how he likes it, and it’d have to be something he liked, the solitude. Living in an old, decommissioned lighthouse has few perks to the normal human being, but for Snafu it’s nothing short of heaven. Remote, quiet, and so hard to get to unless the tide is out that he rarely gets visitors. Even the mail has a hard time coming every day. He enjoys the silence, enjoys the alone time, and makes enough money maintaining the lighthouse to get by. 

Just him and the sound of the sea and the gulls, the clear sea air in his lungs, his roommate of a cat who appears at mealtimes or not at all. Snafu smokes a cigarette outside the front door, leaned up against the whitewashed wall overlooking the drop down into the sea below. The waves crash beneath his feet, bringing the smell of brine on the wind. He turns his collar up against the crisp, cold morning air as he tramps through the dew-wet grass to check the fencing he’d repaired a few days previous, finding it intact and doing its job beautifully. A pair of sheep chewing cud stare balefully at him from the other side, and Snafu kisses his teeth at them, making a shooing gesture that they ignore, jaws working as they stare him down. 

“Don’t you go breaking it again.” He warns them, pointing a finger at the duo. “I know what you do. The grass ain’t any better over here.”

One of them half turns, showing Snafu it’s wooly, off-white backside, and he rolls his eyes and goes back to his dailies. He loves the solitude, yes, even if it does mean he talks to himself and to mindless animals far more than the normal person. 

Snafu likes to refer to himself as a glorified janitor on his weekly calls home to update his Mom on what he’s up to. He mostly says it because she hates it, but it’s not too far from the truth. In return for keeping the lighthouse in working condition, he rents the house attached to it at a discounted rate, just so long as the place doesn’t fall into disrepair under his watch. It means he has a small collection of duties that he spreads throughout the day; nothing too strenuous or too difficult to bother him much. He’s always liked working with his hands and probably wouldn’t know what to do if he didn’t, so it suits him just fine. Every morning sees him ascending the hundred or so spiral stone steps up to the very top of the lighthouse, his breath echoing off the stone walls as he grips at the handrail. It never gets easier, and he always stops for a breather at the top before he does the things he has to: wiping a rag over the giant face of the lamp up there, checking the bulb, making sure everything is in working order. For what, he doesn’t know; the lighthouse hasn’t been in use since the fifties, and God knows there’s even less need for it now than there was back then. 

He stops for a cigarette out on the narrow balustrade that rings the beacon, leaning on the high, stone wall; the only thing keeping him from the eighty foot drop to the ground below. The open sea yawns beneath it, the same view as from his bedroom window, and Snafu turns his gaze back down the beach that is steadily emerging from the thick fog that the morning had left. There’s a hint of blue on the horizon, beyond pregnant black storm clouds, and Snafu watches the storm roll in with something deeply humbling settling into his bones. Sometimes it feels like he lives on the very edge of the world; the whole earth rolling out at his feet, a silent witness to the whims and changeable moods of the planet. His tiny little slice of pure nature in the middle of the great blue beyond, ocean stretching as far as the eye can see. As he watches, slick black heads bob from beneath the dark, choppy waves; the pod of seals that have been returning to the same stretch of land for as long as he’s lived here. It’s comforting to see them again, to know that spring is finally truly on the horizon. 

Snafu grinds out his cigarette in the sand-filled flowerpot he keeps up there for mornings such as these; grey, moody mornings, perfect for watching the sea below. Descends the steps of the lighthouse, footsteps echoing up and down the narrow staircase as he goes down far faster than he’d come up, eager to get back into the warmth of the house, to toss a few logs into the stove and get breakfast on. He listens to the shipping forecast as he cooks, murmuring to himself as he fries eggs and bacon up in lashings of butter. His mother would admonish him for it, but that’s why he’d moved some two-thousand miles North to shack up in the Pacific Northwest with nothing but a cat and the sea for company. _Her_ only complaint with him is that he doesn’t feed her round the clock; stumbling in through the cat door with a yowl already in her mouth as she spots him at the kitchen table with his breakfast.

“I know, I know,” He murmurs, as she butts her head against his shins. “The audacity to eat before you, I know.”

Snafu abandons his food to get up and feed her, just so he can watch her eat her breakfast while he finishes up his own. For a mad moment he half wishes that she could speak to him, the two of them sharing the silence of big, airy room as the first smattering of rain is blown across the picture windows overlooking the sea.

————

Life continues as normal as the storm tires itself out over the next few nights. Snafu becomes accustomed to waking to dark, cloudy mornings, to long, rainy days and pitch black wet nights; he settles back into his winter routine as he waits for the spring storm to settle itself. Sleeping later, dragging himself from house to lighthouse and back and leaving the grounds to the storm’s devices. He’s sure he’ll have his work cut out for him when it comes to repairing the fences that border the property once the days dry up, but it’ll be something to fill his time at least. There’s nothing that could have him out there hauling wood and wire in the teeth of a gale; not love, nor money. He finally finishes the book he’d been reading, finally gets the time to cook himself something warm and indulgent for dinner, something that takes longer than the twenty minutes he normally has energy for.

It’s been such a long time since he’s had anyone visit that when he hears the loud banging that splits the near-silence of the kitchen, he jumps, startled. His mind goes instantly, ridiculously, to those sheep from the other morning: chewing cud as they stared balefully through the fence at him. They would’ve been put inside for the storm, right? Then the banging comes again, louder even than the lashing rain on the windows, and Snafu freezes; glancing out of the pitch black windows which only reveal to him his own reflection, bounced back by the light from inside and the sheer darkness of the night beyond. Nights tend to drop hard and fast around there, and tonight was no different; the darkness brought down faster by the storm clouds roiling above them. Snafu glances to the cat, who is staring towards the hallway connecting the front door to the main living space, ears pricked forward. It’s this which shakes him loose, abandoning the vegetables he’s cutting and wiping his hands on his pants as he paces down the hallway, flicking the light on as he peers through the peephole that’s set in the thick, weathered front door. 

If it wasn’t for the porch light that Snafu likes to keep on for the cat, the man standing outside on the step would have been lost to the darkness that always falls so total over Snafu’s end of the world. For a moment trepidation inches up his windpipe, some long ago buried memory of an emotion beginning to rekindle in his gut. Some drilled into him feeling of instant alertness, and then the man shifts further into the light and Snafu sees him for him: as non-threatening as a person can be, shoulders hunched and visibly shivering in the rain that Snafu’s porch is barely keeping him from. It’s on reflex that Snafu is flicking at the locks lining the door, throwing it open to usher the man inside without so much as a word exchanged between the two of them. 

He’s wet through to the skin; hair dark and plastered to his head as he shudders through a half explanation, “The tide —” 

“C’mon.” Snafu mutters, interrupting him as his teeth audibly chatter, a shiver running through him. “Idiot. Didn’t ya know the tide comes in?” He shuts the door behind the stranger, who seems stuck fast to the mat, arms around himself as he shivers again, big dark eyes in a very pale face. “C’mon,” Snafu says again, softer. “You’re drippin’ all over the place.”

“Name’s Eugene.” He mutters, numbly, as Snafu pushes him down the hall with a gentle but firm hand to his back.

“Good for you.” He says, and Eugene just mumbles something he doesn’t catch, clothes absolutely sodden under Snafu’s hand. 

He strips him of his wet coat, his wet shoes, bundling all his clothes into the dryer as he admonishes him for not taking note of the high tide. In return, the man goes willingly; pale and cold to the touch until Snafu makes him shower. He lays out some clothes on the bed as he leaves him to it, wondering for one mad, cognisant moment if it’s a bad idea to let this man so readily into his home, into his shower. It only lasts a second, before Snafu shrugs it off. Like he has anything good to steal. The nearest road is a two mile hike away, and the nearest village even further; he’d like to see the serial killer who’d make that trek in weather like this.

Eugene returns from his shower all pink from the heat of it, dressed in the clothes Snafu had put out for him. The thickly ribbed sweater is a little short in the arms; his bony wrists jutting from the ends, but he looks warm and dry and that’s all that really matters. He lingers awkwardly at the foot of the staircase that leads up to Snafu’s loft bedroom, to the bathroom, shy and silent as his gaze flicks around the room. 

“Come sit then.” Snafu says, brusquely, as it becomes clear the man isn’t going to come unless asked. “Are you hungry? How long were you out there?”

The story unfolds over a bowl of soup that Snafu cajoles Eugene into eating. He always reverts back to his mother in times like these: pushy, with good intentions. 

“I’m staying over in the village.” He explains, eyes on his bowl as he talks in between mouthfuls. Snafu watches him, chin propped on his hands as he takes him in. He’s charming, in an off-kilter kind of way. Snafu decides he likes the way his long, serious mouth splits easily into a smile as he says, “Went out for a walk along the beach and got lost. Nobody told me the tide cuts the land off from the shore.” He shrugs, eyes flicking up briefly before they drop again as he realises that Snafu is staring. Ears pink, and Snafu has a creeping suspicion that it’s not from the hot shower. “The only place in sight was the lighthouse, though the light wasn’t on so I wasn’t sure if anybody’d be home.”

“’S decommissioned.” Snafu mutters, finally turning his attention back to his meal. He’s decided he likes the look of Eugene at his table too, though that may be a result of the sheer amount of time it’s been since he’s had anybody but the cat and himself sharing the space. “What’re you doin’ all the way out in the sticks?”

“Work trip.” Eugene replies, taking a sip from the mug of tea that Snafu had pressed into his hands not longer after he’d joined him at the table. The teapot sits between them, steam rising gently from the spout as it cools. Darjeeling; floral and light. “I’m studyin’ the local birds for a paper I want to write.”

“Oh yeah?” Snafu asks, and doesn’t miss the way Eugene’s big, brown eyes flick from his mouth to his eyes as he realises that Snafu is looking. He smirks. “So you’re educated, but you can’t read a tide table?”

Eugene laughs, that charming sudden change to his face that a smile brings with it, and Snafu finds himself grinning along. “Well when you put it like that…” He murmurs, eyes crinkled with amusement as he glances away. He doesn’t seem to mind Snafu’s teasing; visibly too relieved to be rescued from the storm outside to care. Snafu finds it endearing, that easy going energy to him that he only begins to notice more as the night wears on. He’d resigned himself to the fact that Eugene would have to stay the night as soon as he’d bundled him through the door, but the prospect was looking less and less unpleasant as Eugene slowly warmed up to Snafu and unwound, becoming more himself as they drift from kitchen table to sofa, from dinner to whiskey. 

He coughs as he takes a sip of it, face screwing up almost immediately as Snafu laughs, warm all the way down to his toes from the whiskey, the food, the company. He’d lit the fire days ago and hadn’t let it go out, so the room is a warm, dimly lit oasis in the miles of open country around them. Just knowing how rough the night outside is makes the inside of the house cosier; the two of them sat at either end of Snafu’s long, comfortable sofa as they talk long into the night. Eugene’s hair had dried a long time ago; a surprising dark red, and fluffy from his shower. Another charming little detail, and Snafu sinks his teeth into his lower lip as he watches Eugene talk, gesturing with his big, sweet hands as he describes his work. Snafu isn’t normally one to be pleased about visitors, much less unannounced ones, but Eugene has done a good job of worming his way under his skin for the night and making Snafu enjoy his company. He chalks it up to mutual attraction and a long week alone for him, sequestered because of the storm and of his general dislike for the public. Eugene is handsome and engaging and knowledgeable, and Snafu pretends not to notice the way they slowly gravitate towards the middle of the sofa as the night wears on, as Eugene’s cheeks grow pinker from the warmth of the room, from the whiskey they’re drinking. 

“You’re very handsome.” He says, after Eugene’s hand finds his knee and squeezes it, laughing at some joke Snafu can’t even remember. Eugene laughs again at that, a smile perched playful on his face as he holds Snafu’s gaze, steady and unwavering. 

“Thank you.” He replies, voice low and thick with amusement. He tilts his head to the side, gaze turning thoughtful as he regards Snafu, pink cheeked and lit golden by the light of the fire. Snafu likes how he looks in his clothes; that faded soft pair of flannel pants, the wool sweater that sits just a little high on his hips.

“Do you like men?” Snafu asks, plainly, and Eugene snorts, eyes finally skittering away even as his hand squeezes again at Snafu’s knee. He asks not because he doesn’t know, but because he wants so badly to hear him say it. 

His reply is slow coming, almost so slow that Snafu begins to doubt himself. _Almost_. “Is that what you ask all the guys you fish outta the rain?”

Snafu laughs; he can’t help it. “Only the ones too stupid to read a tide table.”

The banter is easy, the trip up the staircase to the bedroom even easier. The rain lashes against the windows as they Eugene pulls Snafu into him, the both of them barely inside of the room but too eager to wait any longer. Snafu kisses him eagerly, deep and slow as they stumble their way back to the bed, and then Snafu is pulling his sweater from over Eugene’s tousled head of red hair, biting at his nipples as Eugene’s hands slide home into Snafu’s hair, and the night slips away from them.

————

The next morning, Snafu wakes to the damn gulls once more, and is surprised by how little it pisses him off. Not only does it mean that the storm has abated enough to have them bothering him again, but it means he can get back into his usual routine. He untangles himself from the dead weight of Eugene, laid up on him and snoring very gently, and tries not to attribute his good mood to him completely. Let it be the ebbing of the storm, not his fun one night stand with some weekend tourist he’d been so lucky to have fall into his lap. But there’s a distinct spring in his step as he tears the curtains open, eyes scanning down the long, rocky expanse of beach as he takes in the steel grey sky above it. No rain, no thunderclouds. Snafu whistles his way through a shower, scrubbing at his hair as he mentally checks through all the things he’s been putting off with the excuse of the rain. That damn fence. Those damn sheep.

But duty calls, even if the sight of Eugene naked and sleep-sweet in his bed is a more alluring prospect than broken fences and gull shit. Snafu allows himself one last glance before he’s descending the stairs into the main room downstairs, busying himself with tidying the plates and glasses from the previous night as the coffee machine gurgles behind him. He leaves a note for Eugene before he heads out for the morning, telling him to help himself to whatever food, and then scrawls a not-so-subtle addition of when the tide should be low enough for him to make it back to town. And then his morning is lost to the comfortable routine he’d been missing; wandering the property with a cigarette between his lips and his collar turned up against the brisk, fresh breeze, the smell of the sea heavy in the air as he trudges the wet, worn footpath along the cliffs. The sea crashes below him, slate grey under that steely sky and comforting in its vastness. 

Life returns to the usual grind after Snafu’s little fling; the mornings seeing him tending to the lighthouse, eating breakfast as he listens to the radio, chatting to the cat. The parts of his life that have always brought to him the sense of peace and fulfilment that had been so sorely lacking before. Down South, all tied up in the heat and the humidity and all the memories it held for him. Moving away had been a must, but Snafu had never guessed he would find it so healing. If he could go back and tell that younger version of himself how his thirties would unfold, that mean, angry slip of a boy would laugh right in Snafu’s face. 

The cat leaps up into the sofa to join him, and Snafu runs a hand down her sleek side as she curls up on the other end, making a good show of ignoring him. He returns to his book, lulled close to sleepiness by his long day spent out in the cold, by the heat of the wood stove he’d stoked up as soon as he’d gotten in. Spring was always a changeable affair this far out on the coast, and he surprises himself with the quick dart of yearning for a warm body to curl around in bed later that night. Someone to tuck his face down against the lingering cold. He thinks of the wide split of Eugene’s smile, his broad, delicate hands, the pink flush down his chest as Snafu had undressed him. He’d gone down on Snafu like he was starving, which is what he chalks his current preoccupation with the man up to. Easier to just remember that Eugene was a good lay without bringing in any complicated feelings about how nice it was to have someone in his home.

But he sticks in Snafu’s mind, all the way through to the end of the week when Snafu opens his front door and finds Eugene back on his doorstep as though conjured. Snafu gapes at him, all lit up in the colours of the setting sun, caught between yelling at him for being stupid and missing the tide again and pulling him into a hug. 

“You —” He begins, and then his eyes fetch up on the bottle of wine tucked under Eugene’s arm, the shopper’s bag clutched in his hand, and he quiets. Hand gripped to the doorframe as though it’s the only thing keeping him fully upright. His night had been unfolding as Friday nights for him usually do: spraying Snack Mate cheese spread from the can onto his fingers for the cat, sat in front of the fire with a glass of something strong nearby. He certainly couldn’t have anticipated this.

“It’s a nice evening for once.” Eugene says, taking advantage of Snafu’s distracted silence. He smiles, near self-consciously, and hefts the shopper’s bag. “”I thought you might like a break from cooking. I brought picnic stuff.”

Snafu stares at him, a little speechless as his brain works to catch up with the turn his night seems to be taking. Absently, he checks the height of the sun in the sky, hanging low and heavy just above the horizon. The tide will be turning soon, leaving Eugene stranded. “You brought picnic stuff.” He echoes, wonderingly, and Eugene nods, rocking back on his heels. His scarf is drawn up close around his jaw, windbreaker bulky as though he’s stuffed as much clothing as he could underneath it. Something about it is so sweet, so endearing, that Snafu makes up his mind all at once. He takes a step back into the house, and then inclines his head. “C’mon then, lemme go get my boots on.”

Eugene’s face transforms in a grin, and he follows Snafu readily over the threshold, bringing with him the smell of fresh, cold air; brine from the sea. Snafu grabs shoes, a coat, a blanket, and they head back out into the cool, still evening with him half dressed and wrestling an extra sweater over his shirt, bumping up against Eugene’s side as they make a beeline for a spot overlooking the beach.

“It’s so beautiful here.” Eugene murmurs, as Snafu lays the blanket out on the grass. He’s stood with his back to Snafu; eyes cast out over the peninsula, the waves just catching the golden light of the setting sun above them. It transforms the usually moody sea, and Snafu can’t tear his eyes from how Eugene looks against it; the golden waves, the breeze catching his hair, his profile backlit by the sinking sun. As if he can sense Snafu’s eyes on him, he glances back, a self deprecating smile already beginning to curve his mouth. “I’m sure it ain’t much to you, but it’s pretty damn special to me.”

“No,” Snafu murmurs, spellbound by Eugene’s profile against the backdrop he knows so well. The breeze picks up again, bringing with it fresh peat, seaweed, the all encompassing smell of the water below. “’S not somethin’ you get used to.”

Eugene’s eyes curve with his smile. “Hungry?” He asks, turning away from the scene in front of them, eyes on Snafu as though he hasn’t just dragged his attention from the breathtaking view below. All Snafu can do is nod, dumbly, feeling very warm under all his layers despite the brisk cold of the evening.

They eat their picnic sprawled out on the ground, the edge of the cliff just feet from them. Snafu had neglected to bring glasses, and so they share the wine directly from the bottle; Eugene’s lips stained dark red in the middle from it. Snafu wants to kiss them, wants to see if he can taste the wine from his mouth, but settles for sharing a cigarette instead. There’s something delicate and tenuous in the air, and he feels like one wrong move could shatter it for good. He’s never been one to pick up on things like that, and so it feels all the more important not to disrupt it. He watches Eugene idly tear a head of white clover apart between his fingers, cigarette hanging from his mouth as he watches the waves below, some infinite loop of sea and them. Eugene’s eyes on the waves, Snafu’s eyes on him, the sea watching them all.

“Almost enough to make you sleepy, huh?” Eugene mumbles around his cigarette, throwing a glance back over his shoulder at Snafu, who is picking at a punnet of strawberries. His eyes are heavy lidded, that maddening red stain of his mouth as he draws his cigarette away, the smoke streaming over his head as the wind catches it. “I slept well that night I spent here. Sea right below the window like that.”

“It sure beats city noise.” Snafu replies, shuffling closer as he plucks the cigarette from between Eugene’s outstretched hand. When he takes a drag he swears he can almost taste the wine on the filter; aromatic and dark. 

“Well I figured you weren’t from here.” Eugene murmurs, leaning closer now, attention diverted from the hypnotising waves below them. His gaze dips, down to Snafu’s lips and then back up. “That accent. Louisiana, huh?”

Snafu grins. “Is it obvious?”

“Like the nose on your face.” Eugene says, and laughs, cheek pressed to his shoulder as he takes the cigarette back from Snafu. “Maybe it’s just me. Grew up in Alabama, been in California since I was eighteen.” He shrugs. “’S nice to hear a Southern voice all the way up here.”

“I only moved here five years ago.” Snafu offers, hands creeping back to the strawberries. A sharp breeze lifts the edge of the blanket for a moment, and has Eugene pressing a little closer as he shivers. “Not enough time for me to lose my accent yet.”

“Five years?” Eugene asks, brows raising. “What inspired that lifestyle change?”

Snafu grimaces, flapping his hand as he dismisses the question as easily as Eugene had asked it. “Ain’t the time to get into that.” He mutters. After a moment of silence, Eugene shrugs, pressing closer to Snafu’s side as his hand dives for the strawberries.

“No worries,” He says, and then, “Pass the wine?”

They watch the sun sink low over the water together, finishing off the bottle as they chat more, a winding little path through Eugene’s decision to up and move to California. “’S easier for us there.” He says, and doesn’t need to clarify for Snafu to know he means ‘us’ far more broadly than to refer to the two of them. Us. Queers. Snafu has been hearing the same sort of thing for years now, but has never found himself particularly swayed by it. His idea of a safe place had always just included himself, and space to exist without any outside interference. To Snafu, he’d found it already, though he couldn’t ignore how Eugene was calling into question a lot of the things about himself that Snafu had always thought were concrete truths. Like not needing anybody but himself, not even _wanting_ or caring for anyone else. He can’t slide a pin home into when those truths had come into being, which is as worrying as Eugene’s easy disruption of them. If it had been more than five years ago, then —

Eugene kisses him then, as if he can sense the turn of Snafu’s thoughts towards things he doesn’t care to linger on. His hand is cold against Snafu’s nape as he slips it below the collar of his coat, sending a shiver through him that has Eugene smiling into the kiss. “Cold?” He murmurs, and Snafu doesn’t reply, just kisses him again and again, until they’re both breathless and tangled together, Eugene’s hand now warm and pressed to the top of his spine. 

“Wanna head inside?” Snafu murmurs, the evening having dipped almost too cold to stand as they were fooling around in the grass. Eugene tilts his head to the side, the last dying fingers of light catching him just so, pale lashes golden as he blinks. 

“I guess the tide’s come in.” He replies, and grins as Snafu sits up, hauling him up with him in one motion. He kisses him again, just because he can; because Eugene long nose is red from the cold and he’s sweet and smiling against Snafu’s front, and he enjoys his company far more than anybody he can even think of, for whatever reason. 

“I guess it has.” He mutters, and then he’s pulling Eugene to his feet before they gather the last of the picnic stuff, the empty bottle of wine that had stained Eugene’s mouth so. 

Eugene stays the night, of course. Wrapped around Snafu in his big, soft bed, his thumb in Snafu’s mouth as he buries himself down deep inside of him, the two of them coming together as natural as breathing. The next morning Snafu sticks around and makes them both coffee, grinning at the sight of Eugene sat at his kitchen table; shirtless, his dark red hair wild, a smattering of hickeys laid out from sternum to hip.

“I’m gonna have to get you a punch card.” Snafu quips, sliding a mug of coffee onto the table for him. Eugene grabs at it eagerly, ignoring Snafu’s comment in favour of kissing him. Their morning slips away, Snafu’s Saturday duties forgotten in favour of going for round two with Eugene, both of them pressed together on the sofa as the wood fire crackles and shifts in the stove.

—————

When Snafu opens the cupboard to find only half a tin of cat food at the back of it, it dawns on him that he’s been sequestering himself up at the lighthouse even more than he usually does. Eugene’s sporadic visits have been enough company for him that he doesn’t feel the need to go rub shoulders with the nosy locals at the next village over, and his pre-winter stocking up had left him pretty well off in terms of the pantry, at least until now.

With a heavy heart, he loads into his truck and starts it, the cold engine grinding a couple times before it finally turns over. He can’t remember the last time he had driven; two weeks, maybe more. As he jolts over the uneven dirt track that will eventually open out onto country road, he mentally runs through a list of things he needs to pick up, things to do while he’s in the village. Post office, grocery store. He needs new lightbulbs, a new tank of gas because the current one is running low enough that the gas rings on the hob are decidedly weak. The list only grows as he drives, the countryside passing him by on both sides as he steps on the gas a little, already eager to get home.

The village is as quiet as it always is on a weekday morning; only a handful of people milling around the aisles of the local supermarket as he pushes his cart through, loading things in and doing his absolute best to deflect the curious looks he can feel getting thrown his way. Snafu is so preoccupied with keeping his gaze straight ahead that he practically collides with someone as he rounds the corner of the soup aisle.

“Watch-” He begins, annoyance rising in him until he realises that it’s Eugene that he had almost mowed down with his cart, and it drops away to be replaced by an odd, warm sense of surprise. “Gene!”

Eugene looks as surprised to see Snafu out in the real world as he feels; eyes wide in his face as he shuffles to the side, basket hanging from his arm. It’s so alien to see him in a place as public as the supermarket that Snafu finds he can’t tear his eyes away from him, drinking up the sight of him as though it’s been months since he had last saw him, not just a handful of days. 

“What are you doing here?” Is the first thing out of Eugene’s mouth, and then he laughs, as though realising how absurd his question sounds. Snafu grins, tightening his grip on the handle of his cart as Eugene shuffles closer. “I mean, I’ve never seen you in town before!”

“I try to keep my visits to an absolute minimum.” He replies, dropping his voice low as an old woman wanders by, eyes sticking hard first to Snafu, and then to Eugene, who can’t hold back his grin. He sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, eyes alive and pleased in his face as they flick over Snafu, who wonders if he’s feeling the same as Snafu is in the moment. “You headed in or out?” He asks, nodding towards the couple items rolling around in Eugene’s hand basket, and he rolls his eyes as he glances down as well, smile still lingering.

“I’m boredom shopping.” He says, and it’s odd how easily Snafu finds interacting with him, especially considering how they had left things the last time they had seen each other. It gives Snafu a strange sense of warm pleasure to wonder if those hickies he had left have darkened or faded with time, all hidden underneath the thick knit sweater Eugene has on. Their little secret. “Hey,” Eugene says then, and Snafu snaps his gaze back up to his face. Judging by the twist of his smile he can guess exactly where Snafu’s mind had been wandering, and so it’s surprising when the next words out of his mouth aren’t a tease, but, “Wanna go grab a coffee?”

Snafu can practically feel the eyes of the locals on the back of his head as he nods eagerly, desperate for their interactions to feel a little less _watched_. Everyone in town knows each other’s business and he knows that they must all be very fucking curious as to why the new visitor is suddenly so friendly with that solitary lighthouse keeper they all barely know. He can see it in their sidelong glances as they shuffle by the two of them stood stock still in the middle of the store. Snafu is comfortable in his position as the subject of village gossip, but he’s not very comfortable about Eugene being brought into that too. At least he can get away from them all; Eugene is renting a little holiday cottage right in the centre of the village, and doesn’t have the same luxury. 

“Lemme get all this in the car and I’ll join you.” He says, and Eugene shrugs. 

“I’ll help.”

The only place to grab a coffee is the local greasy spoon; a tiny little diner tucked away between the post office and the gas station. It must be a regular haunt of Eugene’s by now, as when they walk through the doors the girl behind the counter smiles at him, batting her lashes as she swings her ponytail over her shoulder.

“Take a seat anywhere.” She says, and Snafu can barely bite back on his grin as Eugene nods awkwardly, pink in the face.

“Already makin’ friends I see.” Snafu mutters as he slides into the booth opposite Eugene, immediately reaching for the menu just for something to do with his hands. Eugene ducks his head, rubbing at the nape of his neck as he groans.

“She’s taken a shine to me.” He mutters, rolling his eyes as Snafu snorts. “Stop, I can’t help it.”

“Too damn handsome.” Snafu says, quietly, and Eugene’s face is still pink when the waitress comes around, pen and pad in hand for their order. 

The coffee is predictably bad; thin and watery, but with no other option in sight, Snafu drinks it down. It’s enough to be sitting across a table from Eugene, anyway; bumping knees under the table as he listens to him talk about his day. He still hasn’t gotten over how surreal it is to be seeing Eugene in the light of day, in public against the backdrop of a place to familiar to Snafu but so far apart from his own home. Before, he could’ve convinced himself that he’d gone and dreamed Eugene up, some figment born from his own sporadic bouts of loneliness. But no, here he is; charmingly animated as he chats about birds, talking with his hands as the vinyl seat under him creaks as he shifts his weight. Larger than life, so solidly real that Snafu finds himself even more helplessly attracted to him than before. He can’t tear his eyes from Eugene’s face, from the sight of him taking up space in Snafu’s village, in Snafu’s greasy spoon.

“What?” He asks, at one point, noticing Snafu’s unwavering attention. His hand drops to curl around his mug in front of him, almost self conscious as he props his chin on his hand “Am I boring you?”

Snafu frowns, perplexed. “No. Do I look bored?”

Eugene shrugs, gaze sliding away, out though the cloudy window they’re sat against. From here, Snafu can see down the entire main stretch of the village, can see a couple old ladies gossiping in front of the hardware store. He wonders if Eugene finds this place as claustrophobic as he does, sometimes.

As if able to read his mind, Eugene asks, “Wanna get out of here?”

Snafu pulls his attention back to him. “To where?”

Eugene shrugs again, chin propped up on both hands now, big brown eyes settled comfortably on Snafu. _Have I ever told you how much I like brown eyes on a redhead?_ Snafu wants to ask him, but is too aware of nosy ears to say it. “You said you wanted to see the cottage I’m renting last time I saw you.” His mouth pulls up in a smile. “Still interested?”

Images of the last night and he and Eugene had spent together flash through Snafu’s mind, each one more explicit than the last. To see Eugene laid out underneath him in the light of day is almost too much to even consider turning down, and so it’s with a sinking heart that he shakes his head regretfully. “I’m sorry,” He says, and Eugene’s face falls a little. “I’ve got groceries in the car just waitin’ to turn on me if I don’t get stuff in the fridge.” It’s true, even if it isn’t the real reason he’s turning Eugene’s expertly concealed offer down. He’d let a couple frozen TV dinners go bad if it meant he could get to fuck Eugene in his own bed, but the suspicious attention that going back to Eugene’s home with him would draw is really too much to risk it. Everyone in town thought he was an oddball; in his mid thirties and unmarried, living up in that lighthouse all alone. He’d heard the phrase _confirmed bachelor_ thrown around enough to be wary, and the worse _fairy_ , _queer_ , enough to make him warier. No use dragging Eugene into his bad reputation, not when he’s got scrutiny on his already just by being a stranger.

“No worries.” Eugene says, nodding to himself as his hands unfold from beneath his chin and reach for his coffee. Snafu watches him drain the dregs of it with something oddly guilty unfurling in his chest, and made worse by the carefully blank expression that Eugene has pulled onto his face since Snafu had turned his offer down. 

“I really would.” He insists, and Eugene just nods again. “No, really. Look,” He grabs a napkin, holding out a hand. “You gotta pen? Smart guy like you must have a pen.”

“Now you’re just talkin’ stupid.” Eugene mutters, but hands him a pen fished out from his satchel nonetheless. Snafu takes it, scribbles his landline number down on the napkin, and hands both over to Eugene. 

“Call me, okay?” He presses the pen and the napkin to Eugene’s hand, holding his gaze just long enough to let him know he means it. “We’ll do somethin’ some time I don’t have a cat at home waitin’ on her dinner.”

Eugene takes it, a smile that he’s trying very valiantly like to hide lighting up his face. “Fine.” He says, quietly, tucking the napkin away in the inside pocket of his coat. “I will.”

Later, when Snafu is driving home, the passenger seat loaded down with groceries, the chickenwire in the truck bed rattling with each pothole he goes over, he wonders why he had felt so eager to appease Eugene earlier. To have him understand that it wasn’t a rebuff, but a genuine reason not to spend time with him. It’s not a concept he’s ever been particularly preoccupied with when he’s had flings with men in the past; Snafu has always been the one to stick as faithfully as possible to the label ‘casual’. So why was he out here drinking coffee and giving his phone number out? Making dates? 

When he gets home he unloads the groceries, greeting the cat as he weaves between his legs, trying her very hardest to trip him up as he stumbles inside with his bags. Then, later, with the door locked and the fire going, the radio mumbling lowly along in the background as Snafu picks at his food, he wonders just why his lighthouse, which was once such a safe haven from the clamour of the outside world, is becoming lonelier by the day. He imagines Eugene sat at home just as he is, in that cottage he can’t put a visual to yet because of his own self conscious fears, and wonders if he finds himself lonely or merely alone.

————

Eugene wastes no time in calling, which Snafu decides is a trait he finds very attractive in him. The invitation for coffee, the showing up unannounced with the tide at his heels as though he knew Snafu would have him for the night without even asking. He likes a straightforward man, and as much as tells him that when he picks up the phone. 

Eugene laughs down the line, voice a little tinny as he says, “I’m sure there’s a lotta things you like in a man.”

Snafu grins at his feet, perched on a stool that he’d pulled up to the landline, twisting the cord between his fingers as he listens to Eugene chuckle in his ear. He doesn’t use the landline often; once a week to his mother back in Louisiana but otherwise the thing gathers dust. It feels oddly intimate to have Eugene in his ear like this. “You wouldn’t be wrong.”

“I’m sure.” Eugene murmurs, playful. Snafu bites at his lip, feeling so oddly and distinctly teenage that it’s absurd. “But anyway, Snaf. I’m callin’ to see if you meant that rain check from the other day.”

“‘Course I did. You think I go around handin’ out my number to guys I don’t wanna see?”

Eugene’s voice fades for a second, the spotty connection. “— Know about that, would I?” He says, and before Snafu can ask him to repeat himself, he’s continuing without waiting on an answer. “I’m goin’ for a walk Wednesday morning. That patch of woodland by the village, I heard there’s a bird hide there.”

Snafu’s heart is in his throat, a dreadfully juvenile sensation. He hasn’t felt so giddy about the prospect of a date in years. “Yeah, the kids smoke grass there.” He says, grinning wider as Eugene laughs again.

“Y’all got grass here?” A beat of silence. “There’s _kids_ here?”

“Most of the village is pretty geriatric, but I’ve spotted a kid or two.” Snafu replies, tongue in cheek. Eugene has a certain quality to him that leaves Snafu never wanting to shut up around him; he’s sure he could sit on this stool and talk for hours, if he were made of money. 

“Mythic.” Eugene quips, and then, “So you wanna come?”

Snafu accepts immediately, far too eager but he can’t bring himself to give a shit. It’s been a long time since he’s been excited by the prospect of spending time with another person like this, and Eugene has been on his mind too much lately for even him to ignore it. For the first time in a long time, Snafu begins to see the benefits to a little human interaction.

He drives out in the watery blue dawn to meet Eugene in town, parking up outside the cottage he’s renting as he tries to dismiss his creeping anxiety about the locals recognising his truck. Eugene takes a moment to appear, so Snafu stays sat in his truck with the warm air blasting, growing decidedly sleepier the longer he waits. He had to get up earlier to get his duties around the lighthouse done before heading out, and the lack of sleep is beginning to wear on him. By nature Snafu is not an early riser, and even with five years of maintaining a lighthouse under his belt, the hours still pack a real punch. 

“I’m old.” He mumbles to himself, edging his thumb under the stitching on the steering wheel as he zones out. Then he catches movement in the corner of his eye; the front door to Eugene’s little cottage opening, and Snafu pulls the keys from the car’s ignition before getting out to greet him.

It’s a grey, drizzly morning, a bite to the wind that has Snafu hunching his shoulders and pulling his collar up as he shuts the door of the truck behind him. “Hey.” He mutters, a smile pulling onto his face despite the less than ideal weather as Eugene approaches, hands stuffed in the pockets of his huge raincoat. He has a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck, a bag looped over his shoulder, and Snafu raises his eyebrows as he hooks his finger in the binocular strap. “We in for the day?”

Eugene steps back out of Snafu’s reach, mouth curling in amusement. “I brought sandwiches.”

“Well,” Snafu mutters, tugging at the binoculars again. “Thank god for that.”

The hike into the woods isn’t a difficult one, but years of smoking and just generally ignoring his body’s best interests has Snafu breathing hard as they climb the particularly steep slope that leads into the thick tree line ahead of them. The world is steel grey and silent around them as they climb higher, the village dropping away behind them as they walk. When Snafu glances back, he’s surprised to see it shrouded in fog, only the spindly spire of the village church rising above it. It paints an otherworldly little picture; the sleepy town slow to rise, blanketed under a thick, rainy mist, and then they delve into the forest and the village disappears beyond the thick trunks they pass through. 

“You ever come up here?” Eugene asks, and Snafu drags his eyes from over his shoulder, craning his neck for one last glimpse of the village below. Eugene is watching him closely when Snafu glances his way, hair fluffy from the light rain that’s falling, the dark green of his raincoat very attractive next to his pale skin, his red hair. He swallows, and reorients. 

“Never up here.” He murmured, their footsteps muffled by the thick bed of pine needles lining the path. “Always just seen it from town.” There was something about the silence of a forest; so complete, so absolute, that Snafu felt cut off the world in that same way that staring down the coast from the top of the lighthouse made him feel. Like they were the only people left in the entire world, strolling quiet through the peaceful dark the trees cast over them. “I don’t spend a lotta time in woods.” Snafu adds, some too-honest response to the questioning tilt of Eugene’s head. The lush green smell of the trees, the dark peat underfoot, it’s all terribly familiar to him. The only thing missing is the heat. He wishes he hadn’t said anything.

“Oh yeah?”

Snafu nods, turning his eyes to the ground to watch their feet sink into the springy, soft ground underfoot. “I was in the military.” He mutters, and the silence that follows his words makes him brace himself for what Eugene is liable to say next. California; Eugene probably protested the war along with everybody else. 

“You wanna go?” He asks, eventually, and Snafu is so surprised by his words that he glances at him, brows pulled down in suspicious surprise. Eugene’s expression is open, concerned. He shrugs. “We can head back, go grab breakfast or whatever.”

“No,” Snafu says, slow, and they’re practically at a standstill now, the trees looming above as though watching them. “No, it’s fine. I wanna be here.”

Eugene smiles, eyes curving warmly as he reaches out to nudge under Snafu’s chin, the touch lighting him up. “Fine. Tap out whenever you want.”

He doesn’t; the longer they spend walking along the tiny muddy tracks and trails, the more Snafu finds himself able to separate this wet little forest all the way up North from the humid, soupy jungles of his year spent hacking his way through Vietnam. Exposure therapy, or something like it. He doesn’t enjoy lingering on that year of his life, so he doesn’t, instead letting himself enjoy the walk like a normal person. The smell of the pine trees, the glistening green beauty of everything so brought to life by the persistent drizzling rain. Eugene’s company, as comfortable and enjoyable as it’s always been, and maybe even better now with Snafu’s past laid out on the table between them. It’s not a period of his life he frequently explores, not even with himself, let alone the near-stranger he supposes Eugene should be. It feels like Snafu has known him longer than a couple short weeks, and he listens to him chatter away about birds and nesting and a lot of stuff that Snafu doesn’t understand, but is happy to listen to despite it. 

They break for an early lunch as they come across the bird hide that Eugene had mentioned, insider information from an old woman he’d gotten talking to in the post office who’d shared his love for birds. 

“I told her I’m an ornithologist and she just about dropped dead with excitement.” Eugene mutters, kicking at a stray beer bottle as he steps up into the relative dryness of the hide. “So I guess I’m influencing the locals finally.”

“I don’t doubt you were the talk of the town as soon as you arrived.” Snafu replies, settling into the narrow bench that lines the wall of the hide as Eugene approaches the shuttered opening at the face of it. He yanks it open with a crack, and then does the same to the other one before setting in next to Snafu.

“Nor do I.” He deadpans, and then draws a Thermos from his shoulder bag, passing it off to Snafu as a hand-sized sketchbook follows. Snafu watches curiously as he draws a pencil from the ring binding, flipping through past pages full of drawings that Snafu can’t quite make out before he lands on a blank page. When he spots Snafu staring, he ducks his head, running a self conscious hand over his damp hair. “Just a hobby of mine.”

“You any good?” Snafu asks, and Eugene snorts. 

“I’m pretty good. Help yourself to coffee.”

The rain falls gently onto the wooden roof over their heads in the silence that follows, and Snafu relaxes back against the wall behind him as he pours himself some coffee, settles in to watch Eugene watch the forest through that narrow little opening. Watching him sketch birds as they share the complete silence of the deep forest, that odd feeling of standing alone at the edge of the world passing over him again. It’s there in the slate grey sky he can just see through the open shutters, the forest rolling out beneath them, all around them. Snafu had thought it’d be cold but is surprised by how little he minds it, pressed shoulder to hip with Eugene, the coffee warming him from the inside out just as his growing affection for Eugene is. They eat lunch there, and Snafu takes advantage of the privacy of the hide to kiss Eugene, drawing him in by his wrist as he goes to pinch the Thermos from Snafu’s hand. Eugene goes willingly, his cold fingers worming up behind Snafu’s ears as he cups his face, deepening their kiss. Snafu can feel it all the way down to his toes, and when Eugene leans away he finds he can’t bite back on the smile that the feeling is making bloom on his face. Eugene laughs at him, thumb sliding over his cheekbone affectionately as he leans in for one final kiss before they turn back for the day.

They wander back through town, boots muddy from their walk and hair curling in the misty rain that seems to be settling in for the day. Both of them linger outside of Eugene’s cottage when they draw up to it, Snafu settling back against the side of the truck as he waits. He wants Eugene to invite him inside. He knows he will, too. 

Surely enough, Eugene takes the bait; stepping close to Snafu as he tilts his chin up, eyes half-lidded as he grins. “Seems too bad we gotta cut such a nice afternoon short.” 

Snafu inclines his head, heart drawing up tight in his chest with the anticipation, with the pure naked affection he feels for the man. “I s’pose it would be.” He crosses one foot over the other, tucks his hands into the pockets of his coat as they regard each other, stood out in the rain like lovesick fools. The day is dreary enough that Snafu doubts there are many around to see them like this; gazing on each other with hopeless grins slapped across their faces.

“You wanna take me up on that tour?” Eugene asks.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

The tour begins in the front hall, past furnishings more fitting for a sixty year old woman than a man in his thirties, continues through a pokey little wood panelled kitchen which opens out and ends in the bedroom, of course. Snafu is stripping his sweater over his head before either of them can say more than a couple of words, Eugene’s hands catching at his waist as he pulls him in for a kiss, Snafu’s arms still tangled in his clothes. 

“You’re gorgeous.” He breathes, shivering as Snafu’s cold hands push up underneath his layers, messing with the hem until he gets the hint and pulls it all over his head, t-shirt and sweaters all mixed up in one. Flushed pink to his nipples, from the sudden warmth of the cottage, from Snafu’s mouth insistent on his own, on his jaw, his throat. He gasps on an exhale as Snafu worms his hand into Eugene’s pants, a half-laugh as he grasps at Snafu’s wrist, stilling him. “Eager?”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Snafu murmurs, fingers meeting bare, hard flesh under his hand and he grins, beyond pleased. His heart is jammed so far up his throat he can almost taste it, can almost bite down on it. Thudding away so hard he can feel his pulse in his neck. He’s still half-dressed, rumpled undershirt pulled sideways as Eugene grips at his waist, pulling him closer at the same time he steps back towards the bed.

It’s a push and pull that still needs some finessing, but Snafu likes it. He likes the dirty, unpractised way they fall into bed, Eugene’s teeth at his ear as Snafu nuzzles his face close. The way he can’t predict what Eugene is going to do next, the way every touch of his hand to Snafu’s bare skin feels electric. He supposes it’s this love for the lust that the early days of fooling around with someone always have that keeps him untethered, skipping from relationship to relationship as he chases that thrill of the first time. With Eugene sex feels so new and novel that it’s exciting, still. His hands come to curve around Snafu’s ass, pulling him closer until their hips are pressed together, and Snafu makes a noise in the back of his throat at the feeling of Eugene’s hard cock pressed up against his own. 

“Will you fuck me?” He asks, breathless, desperate, as Eugene’s fingers dig hard into the meat of his ass, urging him forward on his cock. That grin, that transforming smile. Snafu presses his fingers to Eugene’s mouth, stomach dropping with the arousal that flits through him as he curls his tongue to his fingertips.

“You want it?” He asks, Snafu’s fingers smearing spit slick onto his lips as he speaks. Those big brown eyes of his are dark in his face, huge and heated in the dim light of the bedroom. Snafu nods, hypnotised, and Eugene’s smile curls. “Show me.”

So he does. On his knees, the plush carpet some cushion against the hardwood underneath, the thick, hot hardness of Eugene in his mouth so much to take that his world narrows down to the eye of a needle. Snafu has always loved sex; loved sex with the right people, for the right reasons. With Eugene it’s heady and exciting and just enough to get him out of his head in such a satisfying way that he feels like he’s buzzing all over from it, taking Eugene down into his throat like it’s nothing, the tears springing up behind his eyelids only spurring him on to take him deeper. And Eugene is perfect. Firm enough, sure of himself enough to give Snafu exactly what he needs. Fingers fisted in his hair, the gentle rub of a thumb over the line of his jaw as Eugene presses his cock deeper into his mouth, taking the reins as easily as Snafu had wordlessly handed them over. It’s rare he finds someone who fits together with him so instantly, so completely, and Snafu doesn’t want to even think about letting this go. 

His cock is hard in his hand, jutting from the zipper of his pants as he squeezes at the head of it, overcome with the pleasure of having Eugene use his mouth just so. If he’s not careful he’ll finish as soon as Eugene pushes inside of him, so Snafu resists the urge to stroke himself off as he wants to, saving himself for the greater pleasure of getting himself off with Eugene hard and thick inside him. And it doesn’t take long before Eugene is pulling his cock from Snafu’s throat, his lips feeling bruised and tender as Eugene eases him back up onto the bed and into a kiss. 

“Tell me they supplied you with complimentary Crisco.” Snafu mumbles, hand dropping to where Eugene is hard and still slick from his mouth. He curves his hand around him, smirking lazily as Eugene snorts, forehead dropping to Snafu’s shoulder so he can watch his hand on his cock.

“What, right in the fridge next to the milk?” He jokes, and Snafu kisses at his ear, fingers tightening on his cock. “No,” He breathes, “Not none of that. I brought KY.”

Snafu leans back, his delight plain on his face as he laughs. “Were you a boy scout?” He asks, and Eugene rolls his eyes at him. “Knew you were gettin’ ass out here in the sticks, huh?”

“Shut up.” He mutters, a hand to Snafu’s sternum sending him falling easily back against the headboard, still laughing. “You wanna get fucked or not?”

“What,” Snafu purrs, inching further down the bed until he’s laid flat on his back, stretching his arms over his head as he sends a heavy-lidded glance Eugene’s way. “I can’t laugh at you _and_ get fucked?”

“No,” Eugene says, reaching across Snafu for the side table. “I don’t think you can.”

Snafu draws a pretend zip over his mouth, locking it and throwing away the key as Eugene rolls his eyes. Then he hitches his leg over Eugene’s, kneeled by Snafu’s side with a strip of condoms and the lube in his hand. “You plannin’ on usin’ all of those, big boy?” His accent always slips out heavier when he’s turned on. 

“You’d like that.” Eugene retorts, and Snafu grins, just before their afternoon falls away from them in a sweaty tangle of bodies; Snafu with his face in the pillows, leaned over his knees with the hard press of Eugene’s cock inside him, his hand steady in the centre of his back, both parts pinning him in place. All he can do is pant breathless into the pillow under his chin, fingers curling and plucking at the fabric until he’s sure he’ll rip it if Eugene doesn’t quit nailing his prostate with every stroke of his cock inside him. Tears cloud his eyes, and Snafu blinks them away as he moans especially loud, his cock tucked up between his thighs and his belly with how Eugene has him hunched over himself. 

“Gene —”

He’s cut off, Eugene’s hand moving from the middle of his back to rest against his cheek; hooking two fingers inside his mouth, giving him something to bite down on, to moan around. He almost cries with how badly he wants more, how bad he wants his cock touched, how bad he wants Eugene to slide those fingers all the way to the back of his throat, how badly he wants him yank on Snafu’s curls and tell him to cum, untouched. He’s fairly certain he’s babbling all that back to Eugene, muffled around the fingers in his mouth, from the pleasure sparking low in his stomach as Eugene fucks him hard and shallow. It’s been a long time since he’s felt comfortable to indulge some of the harder things he enjoys, so when Eugene brings his hand from Snafu’s mouth to wrap tight around his throat, he finds himself sobbing on a moan at how turned on he feels. Prickly all over like he’s feverish, over-sensitised. 

Eugene comes inside him with a moan moments later, and Snafu doesn’t miss his snort as he tries to pull out, only to have Snafu grind back on his softening cock. “C’mon,” He murmurs, patting at Snafu’s outer thigh as he pulls out. “I got somethin’ nice for you too.”

“What you got.” Snafu mumbles, pressing the back of his wrist to his teary eyes as Eugene nudges at him until he rolls onto his back, thighs parting as Eugene settles himself between them. His cock is hard and leaking against his stomach, flushed dark from how badly Snafu wants to get off too. The radiator on the wall clicks, the sound loud in the suddenly quiet room, and Snafu focuses on Eugene with half-lidded eyes as he moves to circle his hand loosely around Snafu’s cock. Then his fingers find their place twisted back in the pillow beneath his head as Eugene slides the fingers of his free hand easily into Snafu, teeth sinking into his lower lip as he presses inside. Snafu arches into the feeling; nothing compared to the hard, blunt press of his cock, but pleasurable in its own way. Two fingers becomes three, and then he’s hissing between his teeth as Eugene eases his fingertips over his prostate, his cock dripping on his stomach as it jumps at the touch. 

“You wanted to cum on my cock?” Eugene murmurs, pressing his fingers forward once more just to watch Snafu’s mouth drop open on a moan. They haven’t broken eye contact once, and Eugene is lit golden by the sinking, late afternoon sun spilling into the small, hot bedroom they’ve been taking up space in for the better part of an hour. Snafu wipes more tears from his cheeks, and finally breaks the connection of their gaze as Eugene presses back into his ass, four fingers now, sending his head slumping back against the pillow below.

“Yeah.” He manages, voice ragged. His hips twitch, unsure whether he wants to escape the insistent slide of Eugene’s fingers or whether he wants to fuck himself back down on them until Eugene lets him cum. “Anything, please.”

Eugene’s gaze is soft on Snafu when he picks his head back up again, mouth hitching in a smile even as his fingers continue their slow slide. Snafu watches with bated breath as Eugene leans forward, his other hand holding Snafu’s cock steady as he sinks his mouth down around it, no teasing, no preamble. Just the sudden wet heat of his tongue, coupled still with that near-overwhelming sensation of Eugene’s fingers curling inside his ass. 

Snafu can barely bite out a warning before he’s coming with a moan, Eugene’s tongue against the head of his cock as he swallows Snafu down even as he spills in his mouth. “Jesus.” He gasps out, his orgasm just going on and on as Eugene’s fingers ease in and out of him, his own fingers stiff from clutching into the sheets so hard. Tears, again, running hot and desperate over his cheeks, and then Eugene pulls his fingers out and Snafu goes limp, his pulse thudding deafeningly loud in his ears.

They lie together in the afterglow, catching their breath as their sweat cools. Eugene lights a cigarette, the room filling with the smell of it, and when it floats into his peripheral Snafu snatches at it gratefully.

“I swear that shit gets better every time we do it.” He mumbles, absolutely boneless with how sated he feels. Eugene chuckles, rolling onto his side so he can nuzzle his face against the side of Snafu’s. 

“Imagine how we’ll fuck in a year.” He mutters, and then drops silent as he realises what he said. Snafu raises his eyebrows to himself, eyes fixed on the ceiling as he takes a drag from his cigarette. “Sorry,” Eugene says, then. “I didn’t mean —”

Snafu passes the cigarette back to him. “Don’t worry.” He says, and it’s his turn to roll on his side now, pillowing his cheek on his bent arm as he flicks his gaze over Eugene’s sweet, handsome face. “You been thinkin’ on that?” Snafu would be a liar himself if he said he hadn’t been doing the same.

Eugene shrugs, eyes cast towards the ceiling as he exhales smoke, cheeks a little pink; from sex, from embarrassment, Snafu can’t tell. “I dunno.” His eyes slide to meet Snafu’s and he smiles, half-lost to the darkening room. “I’m having fun.” He says, a non-answer but it conveys everything Snafu wants to hear despite it. 

“Me too.” Snafu murmurs, grinning back as Eugene’s hand rises to cup his jaw, thumb stroking affectionately over his mouth as the cigarette smoke drifts above them.

——————

The next few weeks run together in pretty much the same routine. Snafu still has his duties around the lighthouse, but the days are getting longer, so there’s an extra spring in his step that he hadn’t realise he’d been missing before. Partly the mornings getting brighter, and partly Eugene’s influence, he’s sure. If he’s learned anything over the time he’s spent with Eugene so far, it’s that his precious alone time might have had more to do with him isolating himself more than he had realised. He feels better day by day as Eugene coaxes him out on walks through the countryside, along the coast; out to town to eat at the greasy spoon there, or over to his cottage where he cooks for him, kisses him, takes him away from the remoteness of his home for a while. The lighthouse remains the safe haven that it had always been, though Eugene has begun to insinuate himself into Snafu’s routine with an ease and a confidence that Snafu greatly enjoys. They spend a weekend together once; Snafu feeling brave enough to invite him to come away with him, and Eugene feeling brave enough to accept the offer.

“I’ll come pick you up Friday afternoon.” Snafu murmurs, the two of them lingering a foot apart outside of Snafu’s truck, parked up on the curb outside of Eugene’s rental cottage. Eugene ducks his head, and grins, and a few days later they’re bumping along together the uneven country roads in the direction of the lighthouse. Eugene’s overnight bag sat on the floor of the truck between his feet, reading aloud from a book that he’d fished out of Snafu’s busted open glovebox. Late afternoon, the two of them lit up orange in the light of the low sun, warm in the cab of the truck, warm with Eugene pressed close to Snafu on the bench seat.

“ — In the dust, trailing their long elegant heels of hot air / crying to confuse the brave.” Eugene reads, the sweet scent of his shampoo in Snafu’s nose as he settles his temple to Snafu’s shoulder. It’s all he can focus on, all he can sense in the close, hot car. His voice, the rumble of the dirt track below them, and that near girlish scent of his sweet red hair. “It’s a summer day, and I wanted to be wanted more than anything else in the world.”

They spend the whole weekend in each other’s laps, basking in the privacy, in the light evenings, in the sun flowing through the wide windows overlooking the sea below. They wander down to the shore together most evenings, skipping stones and talking, and Eugene perches on a rock one lavender-lit evening just as the sun is beginning to edge below the horizon, his sketchbook and pencil in hand.

“What are you up to?” Snafu murmurs, hovering over his shoulder as he watches Eugene make a few light markings on the paper. His hair smells like Snafu’s soap now, after a long shower they had shared that morning, and it takes everything in him not to press his nose to the crown of Eugene’s head and inhale. 

“Drawing the lighthouse.” Eugene mutters, attention on the paper in front of him. “Don’t wanna forget it.”

The affection that crashes over Snafu is a wave he isn’t sure he’d ever like to surface from.

They listen to records in the evenings, shut up inside with the fire going and the cat pretending to sleep between them on the sofa. Snafu cooks; gumbo and beignets, the first too spicy for Eugene’s poor palate, the second sending hot oil spitting at him as Eugene had laughed and dipped his finger into the bag of powdered sugar. It had been a long time since Snafu had yearned for home, let alone do something as drastic as cook food that reminded him of it. He’d returned for a week when he’d been discharged from the Marines; long enough to pack his shit up and collect his GI bill, using it to buy the truck that sits outside. His first purchase; anything to keep him from stagnating in that little town on the bayou. To find himself looking back on his youth spent there was an odd position to find himself in, and one that Snafu filed away for later examination.

Being with Eugene made it easy when his thoughts turned inward like that. That same weekend Snafu lets Eugene wander around with him as he gets his dailies done, grateful for the company and for the break in the monotony. He shows him the lighthouse’s great big basement workshop, and then up up up the spiralling stone stairs to show him the tiny bulb that would power the beacon if it was ever needed again. 

“Why isn’t it lit now?” Eugene asks, hand reaching through to press his palm to the huge, ridged lens caged in its rotating prison. Snafu shrugs, dipping a rag into the bucket of soapy water he had lugged up all the steps before stepping forward to swipe it over the face of the lens.

“Ships just don’t come by here anymore.” He murmurs, quietly. Water trickles down the face of the beacon, forever gazing out into the blue unknown beyond.

—————-

Snafu’s trips into town become more frequent, and with them, the gossip surrounding him explodes. It only serves to make him more paranoid in every interaction he has with Eugene; they keep friendly but distant if they meet each other in town, slowly easing away from the boldness that had captured them when they were feeling all giddy and brand new with the flirting that had been happening between them. It’s not enough, and Snafu knows it. Knows that there’s only so much that will fly under the radar, and Eugene is sleeping in Snafu’s bed more than he’s sleeping in his own lately, and he has a sketchbook and a stack of research journals on Snafu’s coffee table, his favourite sweater draped over the armchair there. When Snafu wakes, it’s to his scent in his nose, whether Eugene is sleeping next to him or not. That sweet, floral shampoo. It haunts him, makes him self conscious when he stands too close to locals in the store, afraid that they’ll smell Eugene on him. 

It seems only a matter of time before murmurings begin to happen in town, and Snafu wants to head it off as soon as possible but doesn’t know how. He’s spending more time in the village than he has in most of the years since he had moved there, and his hard-won anonymity seems more compromised by the day. 

“It’s what I came here for.” He says, shortly, one afternoon which he and Eugene spend trawling along the beach near his home. The tide is way out, just dark sand and pebbled beach stretching as far as the eye can see, right up to the blue wall of sky. Eugene shoots him a curious glance, and Snafu elaborates testily. “Got outta Vietnam knowin’ I had to make a change. Cashed my GI bill as soon as I set foot down in Lafayette and moved up here.” He kicks at a pebble, watching it clatter along ahead of them with the force of his undirected irritation. “Wanted to go someone nobody even knew my name.”

Eugene’s hand finds his; cold and clenched into a fist by his side, and Eugene eases it open with practised care. “They’ll get over it.” He murmurs, linking their fingers together as they walk. Snafu kisses his teeth, annoyed at nobody but himself and unwilling to take it out on Eugene, who laughs. “It’s true! It ain’t a big deal to anybody but you, Snaf.”

“Then it’s a big deal.” He mutters, shortly, and Eugene inclines his head, squeezing at his fingers. 

“Okay,” He says, easy. “You’re right.” Just like that. Snafu hates how simple Eugene makes everything sound, though he’s sure it’s just misplaced jealousy. There’s a lot to be quietly jealous of when it comes to Eugene, Snafu is beginning to realise. Spring is inching ever closer to Summer; ever closer to Eugene’s departure to head back to California, and still so much is clamouring just beyond Snafu’s voice box, unable to break through. 

They haven’t spoken on the topic of _them_ since they had touched so briefly on it that afternoon in Eugene’s cottage, but Snafu can feel the turn their casual relationship has taken. It’s more than the sweater over the armchair, the smell of Eugene’s hair on his pillowcases. They sleep in the same bed for whole weekends without having sex. There have been midnight mutters about visiting Eugene, about Eugene visiting Snafu, all the while skirting the big black pit that is their unaddressed relationship. 

“‘Course my door is open.” Eugene murmurs, one night, voice thoughtful as he strokes his hand through Snafu’s hair. The room is pitch black around them, just them and the sound of the sea for company. “I always have friends to stay.”

_Friends_ , Snafu thinks, the thin skin over his hip burning from where Eugene had bit him not thirty minutes previous. He was sure if he turned on the lights, his lips would still be pink, bruised-looking, from Snafu’s cock in his mouth. He’s reluctant to commit, for obvious reasons, and his own unease with how this relationship had sprung so easily from nothing is at the very top of the the list. That, and how much he’s enjoying it. 

_Love you_ , he mouths to the blackness above them, the shadowy roof. The words don’t feel right, standing at the far end of the scale facing off against _friend_ , and Snafu struggles to find some middle ground that doesn’t leave him feeling claustrophobic, or hurt. He spends nights in alone with the cat, curled around a mug of tea and the comforting white noise hum of the radio, thinking on everything he had ever thought to be true about himself. That sickly want he has always had for a solitary lifestyle, borne from a house shared with too many brothers, and then again in the USMC barracks, in the humid, fetid jungle. He thinks about how the military had churned him up and spit him back out, and how he’s still scrambling to piece himself back together after it all.

In some ways he almost resents Eugene for crashing into his perfectly boring, lonely life that stormy night. Almost. Eugene’s presence has made him feel more settled and happy than he has in a long time, and admitting that to himself is a hurdle he has to stumble a few times to get over. It’s scary, to hang his happiness like that on something as changeable as a human being. The lighthouse makes sense. The cat makes sense. But Eugene? Eugene, from California by way of good old Alabama, red hair like a warning. Does he make sense?

Snafu finds himself so wrapped up in the internal storm that Eugene’s affectionate, easy presence has given rise to inside him that he barely notices the season turning. Not until one night with Eugene laid up against his front in bed, playing with Snafu’s fingers as he says, “My boat back to the mainland leaves Thursday.”

His voice is quiet, hushed, and his fingers squeeze hold of Snafu’s as though transferring the turn to speak over to him. And he can’t, not for a moment. Not with Eugene’s bare back to his chest, warm and comfortable, the smell of his hair in his nose. “Okay.” He manages, finally, and then realises that that’s not enough so he adds, “You wanna ride to the dock?”

Eugene snorts, dropping his hands from Snafu’s as he moves to twist slightly, pressing his cheek to his shoulder so he can fix Snafu with those soft brown eyes of his. “That’s it?” He asks, mouth curling in an approximation of a smile. Teasing, if teasing were some precursor to annoyance. “Really?”

Snafu flounders. “I mean —”

Eugene huffs, and Snafu falls silent, feeling distinctly inadequate in the face of Eugene’s fed up disapproval. He’s never been good with words; it’s why he was so drawn to this solitary lifestyle in the first place. He never failed to fuck things up. “Yeah, I need a ride.” Eugene mutters, eyes cast down as he pats at Snafu’s thigh, a silent command for him to move and let Eugene out of the circle of his arms, his legs. “Then I’ll be outta your hair.”

“Oh, c’mon.” Snafu mutters, sitting up straight in bed as he watches Eugene cross to the en suite, his back to Snafu as he begins to brush his teeth for bed. “You know I ain’t mean it like that.”

“Then how’d you mean it?” Eugene shoots back, muffled from the toothbrush in his mouth. He spits, and then moves to lean up against the bathroom doorframe, toothbrush aloft. He gestures with it as Snafu gapes at him. “Go on.”

“Are you angry?” He asks, and Eugene’s eyes roll so hard in his skull that Snafu’s surprised they don’t keep going from pure momentum alone.

“No,” He mutters. “I ain’t mad.” There’s a fleck of toothpaste at the corner of his mouth, and Snafu itches to wipe it away for him.

“I just —” Snafu shrugs, helplessly. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.” It’s true; he couldn’t press the words past the obstruction in his throat if he tried. All those nights and mornings lost to introspection as his body moved on autopilot through his tasks around the lighthouse have all coalesced into more confusion, for him. Snafu has never been one for overthinking things, but something about Eugene has him going over the same thoughts again and again, tangling them up until the only way to eject them would be messy, painful. He keeps quiet instead, the weight of his true feelings a twisted ball in his throat. 

Eugene scoffs at him, turning away to finish brushing his teeth as Snafu watches him, cursing his speechlessness, his inability to get anything right. In truth, the knowledge that he has only four short days left with Eugene is so dreadful that he mentally skirts it on reflex, not wanting to connect. He thinks if he could just say that to Eugene, he would lose that pinched, annoyed expression on his face, wouldn’t sleep curled on his side away from Snafu when he returns to bed. 

“I’m gonna miss you.” Snafu mutters, lamely, and it’s all he can force for some reason, and he can tell by Eugene’s expression that it’s just not enough as he lifts the covers and slides in next to him. It takes everything in him not to grasp at Eugene, desperate for touch now he knows their time together is drawing ever nearer to an end. “I mean that. I want you to come back, I want to go see you.”

Eugene switches the bedside lamp off, blanketing the room in darkness for the beat of silence that follows Snafu’s awkward, honest words. When Eugene does respond, his tone is stony, still annoyed. “I guess you’ll miss havin’ someone to fool around with.” 

“You know it ain’t like that.” Snafu says, his heart tugging down in his chest with the hurt that follows. “Is that what you think this is to me?” He asks, but Eugene is silent, and doesn’t respond. 

It takes Snafu a long time to fall asleep after that, laid flat on his back with the slow, even breathing of Eugene asleep next to him competing with the roar of the waves below.

—————

Thursday dawns bright and cold, the day blustery enough that Snafu pulls a hat down over his curls just to keep them from his face as he wanders around getting his dailies done before he has to drive into town to pick Eugene up. His hair is overgrown, wild, and all he can think of is Eugene’s fingers combing through it after it’s tangled from a long walk along the beach together. His careful, gentle touch. Snafu always feels like some overgrown cat in his lap on evenings like those; stretched out in front of the wood stove with affection settling heavy and warm in his stomach from Eugene’s attention.

Ascending the stairs up to the beacon seems to take twice the time it usually does, and Snafu has a cigarette out on the balustrade as he watches the sea crash against the black rocks below. The heart feels heavy in his chest; bloated, sickly. He wonders if Eugene will ever comb the tangles from his hair for him ever again.

They don’t talk much in the car, once Snafu loads Eugene’s bags into the bed of the pickup and gives him a hand up into the cab. Eugene is bundled up as if expecting terrible weather once he alights in Westport; face tucked into a thick scarf, raincoat zipped to his chin. Snafu almost makes a joke about it, but Eugene’s expression is stony, eyes fixed right ahead, and so the joke dies in his throat. The radio is playing something upbeat as they bump over the potholes in the road, the village dropping away behind them as Snafu follows the winding road down to the other end of the island, to the dock where the boat will be waiting to take Eugene away from him,

The lump in his throat is like a rock, now. Snafu knows this is his final chance to tell Eugene how he feels, but finds himself silent, eyes on the road as his mind races. He wonders if Eugene can tell how preoccupied he is; wonders if it’s as obvious to the rest of the world that he’s struggling with something so big and unfamiliar that he can’t fit it past his voice box. 

To his great surprise, it’s Eugene who speaks up first. Eyes cast away out the window as they follow along the curve of the coast, past sheep grazing in the fields, the huge expanse of the open ocean becoming them in.

“I’m gonna miss you.” He says, an edge to his voice that keeps Snafu’s eyes on the road, afraid of what he may see if he looked to the side. “So much that I know there ain’t gonna be nothin’ on my mind but you for a while.”

His words drop heavy into the silence between them; the pause following them expectant, pointed. Snafu swallows, and steels his nerves. “I never thought I’d end up here that morning after you stayed for the first time.” He mutters, Eugene’s sudden attention like a spotlight on the side of his face, so focused he daren’t look. “Or the second time, or the third.”

“Where’s ‘here’?” Eugene asks, and Snafu shoots him a sidelong look, a smile pulling at his mouth despite the nerves balling up in his stomach. The great tangled ball of worried thought doesn’t need to be yanked through all at once, he realises.

“Havin’ real feelings for you.” Snafu admits, and the smile that breaks out across Eugene’s face is almost as gratifying as the feeling of that truth slipping free. Snafu laughs, hands flexing on the steering wheel as he turns his eyes back to the road, to the approaching docks. “There, I said it. No more cold shoulder.”

“Can you blame me?” Eugene asks, sliding along the bench seat until he’s pressed up close to Snafu’s side. He kisses Snafu’s cheek, nosing at his ear affectionately. 

“Funny how I can.” Snafu quips, feeling terribly light with the weight of his feelings lifted. He can’t even understand what had made him so nervous to admit to them in the first place. 

The dock is windier than it has been further inland; a narrow grey strip of concrete jutting into the waves. The ferry is already moored; the sailor touches the brim of his hat as Snafu and Eugene approach, his luggage split between them. Snafu nods back at him, wishing that they’d arrived earlier so he could say goodbye to Eugene properly. Wishing he’d kissed him in the pickup when he had the chance, wishing they hadn’t spent the last days of his time on the island annoyed at each other. The wind tosses Eugene’s red hair wild, and on reflex Snafu’s hand is already raising to push it back from his face.

“I’ll write.” He mutters, eyes squinted against the bright morning sunlight as Snafu eases his hair from his face. “I promise.”

“You still got my number.” Snafu murmurs, dropping his hand. The waves crash against the dock, the wind strong enough that they both get showered with misty sea water as it catches the tops of the waves. Snafu knew that if he were to kiss Eugene in that moment, he’d taste of salt.

Eugene nods. “I’ll call you then.” And he grins, eyes crinkling with the force of it, “Posted up at the payphone, I don’t have a phone.”

“That’s what you gotta buy with all the money you’re gonna make off your research here.” Snafu mumbles, hands going to tug at the collar of Eugene’s jacket, straightening it. “Okay, go on.” He says, taking a step back. His heart tugs with the movement, as though yearning towards where Eugene is stood sweet and broad shouldered, hunched against the sharp wind. “Mister Ferryman has been givin’ us the stink eye.”

“I wish I could kiss you.” Eugene murmurs, words almost whipped away by the wind, picking up stronger as it whistles over the flat, low country. The edge of the world. Snafu’s stomach drops, his heart tugging forward again, some invisible string falling taut and then slack with the beat of Eugene’s heart. It’s all he can do to sink his teeth into his bottom lip and nod, eyes roving over Eugene as though committing every last inch of him to memory.

“You were meant to be a fling.” He says, and snorts, just as Eugene laughs. “So, yeah. I wish I could kiss you too.”

“I’ll come back next spring, and kiss you so hard you’ll need to sit down.” Eugene murmurs, leaning forward with a grin on his face as he tucks his hands down into his pockets. Snafu is helpless to do much more than embrace him, holding him close, face in his hair as he breathes in the sweet smell of him. 

He watches the ferry until it’s out of sight; a speck swallowed by the horizon, and then he waits on that dock for a little while more. Smoking a cigarette, freezing his ass off as he gazes out across the water. Then, when there’s nothing more to see, nothing more to ruminate on, Snafu heads for home, his heart a heavy weight in his chest. 

His home has never felt so empty, even though Eugene’s visits have been few and far between over the last handful of days since they had argued. The fact that he’s _gone_ is yet to sink in, and Snafu paces the rooms still in his boots and his coat, calling out for the cat, who must be feeling tolerant or perhaps sensitive to Snafu’s mood as she lets him pick her up and press his nose to the back of her neck.

“You liked him, huh?” He asks, and she blinks her big green eyes at him slowly, before very deliberately twisting to bite at his wrist. “Fuck, okay, okay!” He mutters, hissing as she attacks him again as he lowers her to the ground. “Jesus.”

She pads a few feet away and then sits, proceeding to lick at her paws as though he’d never interrupted her. Snafu kisses his teeth, hands on his hips as he scans the room, and then relents. Hangs up his coat, kicks his boots away under the hall stand. He doesn’t know what’s compelling him to stay dressed and ready to leave at a moment’s notice but he’s sure it’s nothing rational, so he forces himself into the armchair next to the fire, and sets about attempting to unwind.

The room feels cavernous. The silence absolute. When Snafu flicks through the book he’d been reading on nights where he and Eugene stayed in, he finds he can’t focus on a single word. After reading re-reading the same sentence over and over he abandons it, throwing it onto the coffee table as he curls up in the armchair, feet digging into the cushions as he buries his face in his hands. Everything he could have said is spinning through his mind, his memory of their parting turning sour and lacklustre the longer he tries to ignore it. He wishes he’d kissed Eugene, the watchful eyes of the ferryman be damned. He wishes he’d done something more than offered a few lame words, a hug —

He shifts again, and the cushion under him crackles as though something is caught between it and the seat. Curious, he hops up, pulling aside the throw pillow to reveal a book slipped down the back of the armchair, and he fishes it out with his frown deepening. It’s bent, and obviously Eugene’s; one of those hand-sized little kraft notebooks that Eugene liked to keep on hand for sketches. With his heart in his throat Snafu begins to flick through it, warm affection expanding in his chest with every full page of drawings he passes, expanding so big that his eyes begin to prick with tears at the very moment he flips to the back and finds a long passage of handwriting taking up the page. 

_Merriell_ , it begins, and Snafu is so accustomed to Eugene calling him by his old military moniker that his heart swells further at the intimacy of it. _You’re mad at me right now for reasons I can’t work out, but I’m mad for the exact same thing so it’s a truce, right? Two negatives make zero, or something like that. I study birds, not numbers._ Snafu snorts, fingers pressed against his lips as he reads, stood stock still in the middle of his living room as he reads greedily, hungry for Eugene’s words. _I’ve left you that sweater of mine I know you like and I know you were plotting to steal anyway; it’s only fair that you should have it, nobody told me redheads can’t wear red, so it’ll suit you better than me. Wear it when you miss me. If you find a t-shirt of yours has gone missing, well — you’d want me to have something to remember you by, right? And this, too. Tear out the pictures, hang them up, put it away and look at it on special occasions — I don’t care, just keep it safe for me, okay? I’ll be back to get it soon._

Snafu reads the note two more times, and then — with his heart in his throat — he takes the steps to his bedroom two at a time. The cat follows, obviously thinking something exciting was happening to get Snafu moving so fast. 

“ _Stop_.” He mutters, stumbling over her as she beats him upstairs, weaving between his ankles as he throws open his wardrobe, eyes alighting on a familiar red sweater hanging up so innocuously amongst his own clothes he’s sure he could have gone weeks before noticing it. He pulls it out, the soft, thick knit pulling away from the clothes hanger, and buries his face right into it, any embarrassment he might have once found in being so openly lovesick and foolish gone. And it’s exactly what he needs; the familiar smell of Eugene tied up in every thread of the thing, and it’ll fade, he knows, but if it gets him through this very first day of adjusting and easing back into the solitary lifestyle that Eugene had so readily yanked him from, then it’s worth its weight in gold. How Eugene could have known that he’d need this is beyond him, but Snafu doesn’t linger on it.

Instead he throws off his own sweater, sliding Eugene’s over his head to surround him in its scent. Detergent, soap, and beyond that something musky and warm and human that’s just _him_. The joy of it unsticks him from his directionless moping, and sends Snafu back to his boots, back to his coat, the cat hanging behind in the bedroom now she’s worked out there’s nothing exciting going on.

The steps to the beacon are easier to climb than they had been that morning, and when Snafu steps out onto the balustrade and fills his lungs full with that fresh, clean sea air, he feels so buoyed up by the unexpected gift that he could shout. Across the waves, across the land, on and on until it’s merely a whisper, drifting close to Eugene’s ear. The sea rolls out beneath his feet, the black rocks glistening in the late morning sunlight, and Snafu thinks _I’ll be back to get it soon. I’ll be back to get it soon._

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! :~) lemme know what u thought!


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